Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking
by charming.cheerios
Summary: "When Robin Scherbatsky woke up, everything was upside down and things that shouldn't have hurt, did." - The gang, minus Barney, are involved in a fatal car accident and the life of one of their own hangs in the balance. Briefly mentioned Barney/Robin, Lily/Robin/Ted friendship.


**Somewhere a Clock Is Ticking**

When Robin Scherbatsky woke up, everything was upside down and things that shouldn't have hurt, did.

The others have had seemingly recovered just as her eyes registered where she was, and it had been perhaps less than a minute before the short lived chaos among them begun. They were ushering one another from the upturned vehicle, helping each other unbuckle their seatbelts should the need it and inevitable collapsing to the roof. Robin at first did not register the immediate pain but the fact that she could not breathe for the seatbelt imprisoned her tightly against the leather, and the heavy taste of copper pooling within her mouth from the back of her throat – Ted interrupted her then, sitting upright before her blurry vision and working hastily to unbuckle her when she found she was incapable. He eased her from her seat, shouting words she couldn't process, and hoisted her by the arms from the wreckage.

And it was then the pain caught her; a white hot agony focused intently within her torso, and whilst he took her she released something between an involuntary yelp and a scream. "Guys! Guys, I need a little help here," She heard Ted call above her, easing her back upon the cold concrete several feet away from the car that had previously flipped (multiple times, if she wished to get technical). Bloodied fingers grasped tightly at the fabric of his button down, her grip so vice her knuckles paled, and she struggled for a pained breath that wouldn't come. She turned her head to the side just as the other two passengers had hobbled over, the bulkier one of the duo stumbling upon his feet, and spat the augmenting crimson from her mouth before she begun to choke.

"My…my c-chest," She whimpered, an exhalation of oxygen with words mixed in, for the pain circulating throughout the entirety of her body appeared to have stolen all of her remaining strength and evidently her pride, "feels t-tight…I can't – I can't…breathe." Sirens, she could hear sirens. The sound was faint and distant, but a blissful tune to her ears.

"Hang in there, Robin. The paramedics are on their way" The young professor demanded of her, nothing but a blurry image crowding above her with blood cascading from a rugged cheek. She nodded sharply, head pounding harder than she imagined was possible, and found herself unable to respond, as when she had tried her breath caught in her throat, replaced air with a liquid crimson. She coughed violently, a small trickle of rogue exuding along the corner of her mouth and down the side of her bruised cheek. Black spontaneously crept within her vision, obscuring Lily's face from view, Ted's and then finally Marshall's.

Robin closed her eyes, her breathing coming in sharp gasps; _his_ name whispered faintly from her lips, hardly audible amongst the commotion before her head lolled to the side – and everything was silent.

* * *

_No one saw it coming. It seemed ludicrous that none of the four passengers had noticed the truck pummeling straight toward the side of their own vehicle when just moments before, the horn had boisterously roared. An unacknowledged warning, for it had all happened so fast not one of them could quite register what was going on immediately. Robin could just barely see the glowering headlights in the corner of her eye, and having been laughing at something ridiculous Marshall had sung about Barney being away on a business trip, did not think much of it – that was, only until the intonation became more clear. The ventral of the offending truck rammed straight into their side at full speed with a screech of metal upon metal._

_Robin's side door instantaneously caved in, and Marshall's car was thrown into the air. Her head hit the glass window pane with a painful smack as they were ruthlessly flipped – _

_And then, nothing._

* * *

In her unconscious vicinity, she lay silent and still as though deceased, had it not been for the gentle rise and fall of her battered chest. She had no answers to Lily's pleas laced in only desperation and distress, she had no witty (Canadian) commentary, no compassionate smiles. The only common ground the two women shared in this moment was the fact that they were both alive, yet not particularly living; breathing, moving, and a lifeless shell. The brunette women perhaps suffered the worst side of the coin, for Lily could breathe and talk and see and move all on her own, without help, without pain; however perhaps only in the heart.

Robin could not do any of the things she and everyone else in the room could – she could only lay immobile upon the mattress within the Lincoln Medical center, hooked to a variety of wires and IV's that helped her stay just as she was. Alive and breathing, that is, for the previous car accident had produced so much damage to her chest (something along the lines of a hemothorax) that immediate surgery was required. And Robin did not wake up, knocked straight into a coma, vitals only kept animate by life support yet highly expected to make a full recovery. So Lily sat, holding Robin's hand very tightly between two of her own, stitches running along the side of her own forehead. She could, at this rate, see a light tinge of blue to the martyrs pale lips, and her heart sank a little further. Each doctor she had spoken too had all reassured her, Ted and Marshall that they all strongly anticipated for the comatose woman to wake within the next few hours, if not the next few days. But, to Lily, she didn't seem to be looking any better and only worse.

"How could this have happened? _Again_?" Asked Ted quietly, seated across from her and sporting a neon green band aid just above his right eye, his gentle voice hardly overwhelming the consistency of the beeping heart monitor. "And has anybody called Barney since…?"

Lily's hands clenched tighter around her best friends, throat constricting and eyes watering, threatening the possibilities of fresh tears, too lost in her own pessimistic thoughts to quickly comprehend anything he was saying. When she had, for a moment she feared to speak, too afraid to burst out in sobs all over again at the mere words of the young architect. She turned away, honey brown eyes intently focused on her best friends unwavering expression. Marshall seemed to catch on, for his hands rubbed delicately at her shoulders and he spoke for her.

"I did," he frowned and cleared his throat, "there's a plane delay because of the storm, but he said he's going to try and get here as soon as he possibly can."

"Why can't she just breathe on her own and wake up?" Lily finally vocalized, tone much firmer than she had previously anticipated and interrupting the two solemn males surrounding her. "Robin's stronger than this. She wouldn't just fall into a coma like this, she would fight i-" A sudden spike on her friends heart monitor seized her words immediately and she removed her gaze from her comatose friend to the machine several feet away from it. The electronic signals in which showcased the patient was still awake rapidly increased, seemingly out of nowhere, and a nearby nurse ran into the room, practically pushing a frantic Lily and Ted out of the way. Another called a 'Code Blue!' into the intercom before turning to the trio, guiding them away from the scene.

"You three can't be in here," she explained quickly, practically shoving them out of the room before quickly adding an apology.

But Lily didn't have it. "What's happening?" She shouted over the spontaneous commotion, Marshall's arms constricting around her waist and hoisting her back.

"She's crashing!" The first nurse called over her shoulder just at Robin's previous doctor jogged into the room, a cart quickly following behind him, "we're losing her Dr. Milton!" The young male, seemingly in his mid-thirties, in emerald scrubs gathered two electronic paddles in his hands from the tumbrel that had fell in his wake only moments before just as an unwelcome flatline rang, his words incomprehensible to Lily, whom had been gathered in Marshall's brawny arms in the waiting room several feet away. Ted was yelling at them, but his words too did not process – it was though everything had gone silent, despite the blaring heart monitor and her own pulsating heart seeming to thunder within each ear.

"This isn't happening," Lily sobbed against Marshall's chest, her hands tightly grasping the fabric of his jacket as she peered on, conscious of his own feeble injuries, "Robin wouldn't just give up like this! She wouldn't!" And her husband said something too, but even still she could not comprehend it.

"Clear!" Dr. Milton shouted, bringing the defibrillators to either side of Robin's chest. The woman jolted upward from the shock, only to fall back upon the flattened mattress with a soft thump. Lily's eyes found the heart monitor again beside the bed in which the doctors and nurses gathered. Nothing was happening, the line was still flat – still blaring that horrible, horrible sound she never wished to hear again in her life. Ever. And for a moment, she was glad Barney wasn't here. She wasn't sure how he would react given their history, and the thought worried her. But only for a second.

Dr. Milton demanded the shock charge to be brought up higher before the paddles hovered over Robin's chest once more. "Clear!" He repeated. The nurses removed their hands from the motionless body, which had reacted in a similar fashion to the first jolt of electricity. He muttered something inaudible to the nervous trio just outside the room and threw the paddles to the ground, interlocking his fingers and beginning to apply chest compressions just above the still relinquished heart.

"God damn it, Scherbatsky!" Cried Ted from somewhere behind them, collapsing heavily upon one of the padded chairs against the farthest wall.

A faint intonation then, after a solid 5 minutes of resuscitation, brought the previously inactive heart monitor back to life. The once flat line spiked once, then twice…and Robin's eyes weakly fluttered open, squinted presumably from the bright florescence of the ICU room in which she occupied. Her face screwed up in pain almost instantaneously, however despite this, Ted, Lily and Marshall all exhaled a gasp of laughter and relief. Dr. Milton looked just as relieved as the three impatiently waiting outside, and took one of Robin's hands in a similar fashion to what Lily had done several moments before she'd flatlined – "Welcome back, Ms. Scherbatsky. You gave us all quite the scare."

* * *

**So that's that. My first, utterly sad HIMYM fanfiction! Even though it was strangely depressing I hope you all enjoyed it anyway! Because I don't know how I feel about it, lol. And I'll tell you, I was about to be super cruel with that ending but a part of me wouldn't allow myself to; so I'm glad I chose not to. Also, I was thinking about making it a two-part story and adding Barney in the second chapter (since I stubbornly chose not to for the sake of not being completely OOC and ruining the image) but I'm still not sure what to do yet – please leave your opinions in a review! :) **_Ps; it's probably going to happen_**.**

**Also, as a side note, this takes place shortly before Lily gets pregnant (season 6).**

***Any flames will be disregarded***


End file.
